Today, October 16, is World Food Day.  It’s a quiet, little occasion, with no exciting mass mobilization of people just like in Earth Hour (which last March was participated by hundreds of millions), but it’s very important nonetheless.

Clean Your Plate campaign during the 1940s.

We’re talking global food security here. Since 1981, when World Food Day was first celebrated, that has always been the concern. Every year, the event is given a theme (Food for All, Trees for Life, Youth Against Hunger, Fight Hunger to Reduce Poverty, Harvesting Nature’s Diversity, etc.). But whatever they’re called, they’re more or less a variation of that same big concern—food security all over the world.

Food Issues
We see our supermarkets and groceries all filled up with various foods each time we visit, so it’s rather hard to imagine there is such a food crisis going on. But know that there is. In impoverished countries—men, women, children, the elderly—subsist on just one meal a day, and a nutritionally-barren meal at that. Farmers who toil on the fields don’t get the compensation they deserve for all their back-breaking efforts. As population continues to rise, demand for food will increase too.

Perfectly good wasted food

This year’s World Food Day theme is Family Farming: Feeding the World, Caring for the Earth, a theme that’s very optimistic and action-oriented.  We’ll need that optimism and action plan, so we can tackle the various threats to global food security right now.

These are:

Climate change.
Inarguably, this is food security’s biggest challenge.  Climate change is a clear indication that nature’s balance is messed up. Weather patterns become erratic and more intense. Temperatures either go up or dip. Sea levels rise. And landscapes drastically change. Sadly, plants, trees, and wildlife simply don’t have enough time to evolve to adapt to the new conditions.  Obviously, agriculture takes a hit too because it depends so much on nature—on water, air, soil, and the weather.  When plants refuse to flower because it’s too humid, when pests abound because of hot temperatures, when supertyphoons destroy crops such as rice, and when too-cold weather freezes our vegetables, we’re screwed.

Aging farmers
We have a lot to thank farmers for. Without them, who would grow our food?  That’s why the rapid decline of farmers—old farmers ageing out, with few young ones to replace them—is a big concern.  The next generation is hesitant to go into farming because of lack of capital or own land. Others are drawn to careers that are more financially-rewarding, easier, and prestigious. And with climate change around, this poses uncertain problems for the unprepared, aspiring farmer.

Massive bee die-offs
It might be an exaggeration to say that when the bees go extinct, we die too—because after all, bees are responsible for pollinating majority of the food crops we depend on. Yes, food production will be significantly affected, but not to a point that we’ll die too. Other insect pollinators will take over the bees, they say, and life will go on for us.

But a species snuffed out of this planet is still a death to mourn. Especially if the reason for their death is something as preventable as the use of pesticides. Whether the dwindling bee population will affect food security or not, the more serious matter to think about is that once again a species is in danger of being wiped out all because of us.

Genetic engineering
Plant genetic engineering has always prided itself as a well-meaning solution to many of agriculture’s problems: how to resist pests, how to get better, faster yield, how to have vitamin-fortified crops, how to fare in extreme weather conditions, etc. If done correctly and morally, genetically modified food (GMO food) just might be able to address the global food insecurity problem we have. Still, there are ethical and health safety issues to consider. As a rule, nature does not like being messed around with, and our interventions may have unintended, unforeseeable effects.

Soil erosion
According to the WWF, we’ve lost half of the topsoil on our planet in the last 150 years. That’s pretty serious because the topsoil happens to be where plants get most of their nutrients. Deforestation and incorrect agricultural practices such as overgrazing and use of pesticides are to blame. The topsoil gets washed into our rivers and lakes, polluting them and affecting aquatic life, or else they clog our waterways, and contribute to flooding.

Because we’re left with barren earth, we depend on chemical fertilizers to enrich the land. Often though these fertilizers destroy nature’s balance—polluting the soil, killing the soil’s biodiversity, and eventually contaminating our food.

Land “development”
Agricultural land turned into developed land is another serious threat to food security.  Once that land is “developed” for buildings, we forever lose one more patch of land that could have been purposed for food production.